Speed skiers: Don't scrap the super G

By Published On: March 14th, 2007Comments Off on Speed skiers: Don't scrap the super G

Leading skiers have reacted with surprise and concern to the possible scrapping of super G races by alpine skiing’s governing body in coming years.
    Speaking on the eve of the World Cup Finals on Tuesday, men’s World Cup race director Guenter Hujara said the speed discipline may be eliminated to make the season less cluttered. “I am going to make a proposal for the next FIS spring meetings in Portoroz [Slovenia] that from the 2008-09 season the super G will only be part of the super combined, not an individual event,” Hujara told reporters.
    “I already informed the teams in Kvitfjell last week that the purpose is to reduce the number of events each year because athletes are too tired at the end of the season,” the FIS official added.
LENZERHEIDE, Switzerland — Leading skiers have reacted with surprise and concern to the possible scrapping of super G races by alpine skiing’s governing body in coming years.
    Speaking on the eve of the World Cup Finals on Tuesday, men’s World Cup race director Guenter Hujara said the speed discipline may be eliminated to make the season less cluttered. “I am going to make a proposal for the next FIS spring meetings in Portoroz [Slovenia] that from the 2008-09 season the super G will only be part of the super combined, not an individual event,” Hujara told reporters.
    “I already informed the teams in Kvitfjell last week that the purpose is to reduce the number of events each year because athletes are too tired at the end of the season,” the FIS official added.
    Super G has been a part of the World Cup since the early 1980s when it was introduced by the FIS World Cup committee to offer another speed discipline to the downhillers and increase their chances to be involved in the battle for the overall World Cup title.
    In the 1970s, the overall crowns were mostly clinched on the men’s tour by slalom specialists such as Piero Gros, Gustavo Thoeni and Ingemar Stenmark who seldom or almost never competed in downhill. Austria’s Franz Klammer failed to capture the big crystal globe in 1975 despite winning eight downhills that season.
    Super G is basically a shorter downhill with more turns, and the fact that,
unlike downhill, there are no training runs means it often produces exciting, unpredictable races.
    Swiss Didier Cuche, who last week clinched the World Cup downhill title and is going for the overall trophy here in Lenzerheide, strongly believes the super G should be retained.
    “I guess I better hurry up and win one before they cancel it," joked
the 32-year-old, who has twice topped the podium in super G, including at the Nagano Olympics in 1998, where he got silver behind Hermann Maier.
    “In my opinion, it’s the most intriguing specialty,” he added. “You just
inspect the course and then race. It’s spectacular and you have to take lots of risks to win. It’s almost impossible to make it to the finish line without a mistake.”
    “I think we have to discuss seriously about this as we did about the start orders in downhill and super G at Garmisch-Partenkirchen last month. We have studied a few possibilities and we believe that there are some ideas which we could present to our national federation and FIS. One of them could be to have the seven fastest skiers of the last practice run choosing their bib.”
    The top speed specialists have argued with FIS officials about the actual start orders in the speed events, which have the top 30 in the World Cup standings starting in the reverse order. “It definitely is a serious handicap for the late starters,” Cuche said. “The courses are often damaged for the favorites and they can’t express themselves as well as they should.”
    The super combined, which features a shortened downhill and a one-leg slalom race, was launched last season to offer scope for both speed and technical specialists and also to give a chance to skiers from less-established nation to excel. In fact, Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic surprisingly captured a super combined in December at Reiteralm.
    But Cuche is not convinced yet by the athletic value of that discipline. “I finished 15th in the last super combined at Kvitfjell without any serious slalom training for five years,” said Cuche. “It shows you that almost anybody can do well in a super combined. You have to ski a lot better to get into the best 15 in the other specialties.”
    Austrian great Maier, a former world and Olympic champion in super G, and “Speed Queen” Renate Goetschl also hit out at any plans to lose the event. “This is the most challenging and exciting event,” Maier said. “I've always enjoyed racing super G — it’s about guts and feeling. It’s pure ski racing because it's mostly a tough course and you have to be instinctive.”
    Goetschl, who has 17 career World Cup wins in super G and already captured this season’s crown, added, “If they get rid of super G, I may as well quit racing.”
    The 31-year-old Austrian who still aims to clinch the overall title here races mostly in the speed races now after having been a more complete racer in past seasons. Renate needs to end in the top 15 in the technical events here to have a serious chance to beat Marlies Schild, Nicole Hosp and Julia Mancuso. She already won the big crystal globe in March 2000 after an outstanding season.
    Any decision by FIS to scrap the super G would eventually run into problems because the event is already part of the program for the 2009 and 2011 World Championships and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and it’s difficult to imagine that those programs can be changed now.
    Atle Skaardal, the women’s race director, said that the most important for the moment is to have good and constructive discussions about what the World Cup tours mostly need to remain attractive for the crowd, the organizers, the skiers and the sponsors.
    “It’s good to start a serious discussion about the super G and its place among the other specialties because we might have the opportunity to talk about fundamental issues on our sport,” Skaardal, a former two-time super G world champion, added. “We have to set some new guidelines here.”
    Interestingly enough, an eventually proposal about the future of thee super G would be handled by experts and members of the FIS Alpine Committee whose chairman, former triple Olympic champion Toni Sailer, has been one of the promoters of the super G in the early 1980s along with Serge Lang, the founder and former president of the World Cup committee.
    Controversy surrounded the start of the super G within the World Cup program in 1983. It may well take a while for such a drastic change. USA’s Phil Mahre refused to enter it as he also refused to take part in the new combined event introduced at the 1982 World Championships in Schladming.
    “Alpine ski racing doesn’t need a fourth or a fifth event, let’s stick with the basic such as downhill, slalom and giant slalom,” he said in 1982 and gave away a strong chance for a gold medals in 1982. He was very proud to win the 1983 overall cup without racing in super G.
    His successors were all powerful super G skiers, especially Swiss Pirmin Zurbriggen and Marc Girardelli, who domina
ted ski racing from 1984 to 1993. Most of the recent overall champions are excellent super G skiers, including Benjamin Raich, who reached several podiums in that event in 2006.

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About the Author: Pete Rugh